General Surgery

General Surgery at The Surgical Clinic

When selecting a surgeon, The Surgical Clinic wants to make sure that you understand the specialty and what the title of “General Surgeon” means. The term “General Surgeon” is a little misleading since in the medical field, the term is a highly trained specialist not a “generalist.”

The term “General Surgery” refers to a specialty area of surgery that focuses on the abdominal organs. You would expect a General Surgeon to operate on some more common abdominal complaints such as appendicitis, hernias, gallbladder, stomach and intestines.

General Surgeons must graduate from a four year undergraduate college or university and then complete four years of Medical School to earn an Medical Degree (MD). After earning an MD from a Medical School, the Surgeon will be matched in a surgical residency. Surgical Residencies are highly competitive, supervised learning experiences in which a Resident will learn under the supervision of an attending physician(s). During the Residency, the Supervising Physician(s) will gradually allow the Resident to do more autonomous work until the Resident is capable of doing that procedure without help. Since Residents need to learn many procedures, a Residency Training Program is generally found in larger metropolitan areas where many patients will arrive needing a variety of types of procedures.

A physician will spend five years completing a General Surgery Residency. Following a Residency, Surgeons may elect to continue with specialized surgical training for procedures in other parts of the body. These Fellowships will add competencies in areas such as Vascular Surgery (an additional one to two years of study), Breast (an additional year), Minimally Invasive Surgery (an additional year).

As you explore the biographical information about the Surgeons of The Surgical Clinic you will also notice that each Surgeon has provided a list of the most common types of procedures they each perform, helping you to match the right Surgeon to your specific needs.